Dead Frontier/Issue 124
This is Issue #124 of Dead Frontier, titled Conquer. This is the fourth issue in Volume 21. Issue 124 - Conquer The door of the stairwell slams shut behind Tora, Lucy, and Daniel. This section of the bottom floor is a lobby; it’s empty of any movement, and the windows that line far wall are shattered or cracked, letting in bits of wind and light. About fifty chairs are scattered about, and Lucy hurries to one and sets it upright. Daniel collapses into it, his hand held close to his body. Blood soaks up a section of his shirt, and he seethes in pain to keep from yelling out. Tora is crouched down next to him. She pushes a few strands of hair out of her face and puts on the most comforting tone she can for Daniel. Her eyes, however, betray any semblance of calmness she wishes to convey. “I need another chair--right here,” Tora orders,and she pats the ground next to Daniel. “And your knife.” Lucy sets up another chair and hesitates, slightly confused by Tora’s second command. “Knife--''now''.” Lucy doesn’t even question it--she pulls her knife and hands it Tora. “What the fuck are you doing with that?” Daniel asks. His voice shakes, and his eyes dart wildly from his hand and back to the dirtied knife. Tora pulls her bag over her head and retrieves a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a white rag. Without answering Daniel’s question, she disinfects the blade. “We need to cut it off,” she says when she's finished. “Cut what off? What the fuck--” “Your fingers. Just the two--if we do it fast enough, it won’t spread, and you won’t turn.” “Fuck that. No.” Daniel shakes his head, and beads of sweat slide down his face. As much as he wants to protest, he knows Tora won’t take no for an answer. “''You’re wasting time'',” Tora says. “Put your hand there, on the chair.” “Oh, God,” Lucy groans, and she turns her head away. Daniel is frozen in his seat and, shakily, he holds his hand out. The tip of his left pinky and ring finger are gone completely, barely leaving two nubs. They’re bloody and jagged. He feels his vision go dark at the sight of it and the certainty of what’s coming next. “Make it fast. Please,” he mutters. He sets his hand down on the base of the chair next to him, and averts his head to the left. He repeats a short prayer that no one else can hear but him. His breathing speeds up, anticipation rising--until he feels the blade connect with his hand. He can’t suppress his scream this time, and it echoes throughout the hospital. ---- Adam and Duke rush down the west stairwell, on the completely opposite side of the building from Daniel, Tora, and Lucy. They managed to clear it on the way upstairs, and now they jump over the familiar bodies from earlier. They reach the next floor below and emerge out the stairwell door. Duke whacks a nearby infected in the gut with his sledgehammer; the head of the hammer goes straight through, and after pulling it out, the steel dripping with blood and rotten insides, he brings it down on the infected’s head. Adam has already diverted left, taking the time to stab a few infected blocking his path, and Duke follows. “How the hell are we supposed to find this fool?” Duke says as soon as he matches Adam’s pace. “Just look. We can’t leave him down here,” Adam says. He peeks his head into rooms, working to keep his footsteps as silent as possible. The infected in the rooms, fortunately, don’t notice them for the most part; by the time they do, they’re already far down the corridor. They reach the collapsed section of the ceiling--the floor they were on before. Dean is nowhere to be found, and the infected that were here before are gone as well. “Must’ve followed him,” Adam says. “Shit…” He lifts his head and looks down the long hall. A few infected stumble out of the rooms, but instead of bothering with Duke and Adam, they all head in the same direction, turning a corner and disappearing soon after. They share a glance, and come to a silent decision. ---- Dean scours through the drawers of a desk in the hospital room. The volume of the groans is reaching its height, but he blocks it out for now. The goal still stands, even with this setback: find any medicine you can. The desk contains nothing but papers, clipboards, and the computer monitor that sits on the surface. He smashes his fist against the desk, overcome with frustration, then grabs onto his hair. He’s panicking, and he’s not sure if he can push it away this time. He takes a few deep breaths and, amazingly, he feels his heartbeat subsiding. He moves on to a shelf next to a dusty hospital bed. A biohazard sign is plastered on it, but he rips the door open anyway, and bottles of pills tumble onto the floor before him, along with rags, needles, and other supplies he has no idea if he should take or leave. Frantically, he pulls off his bag and unzips it. He grabs whatever he can and throws it inside as the banging on the door, mixed in with growls, reaches the verge of unbearable. ---- Ivy pokes her head into Lienne's tent, carrying two brightly colored pills in her right hand and a bottle of water in her left. She enters fully and hands the items to Lienne, who offers her a polite 'thank you.' These pills are supposed to dull the pain, but for Lienne, her agony hasn't subsided in the slightest for these last couple of days. Ivy has become her unofficial caretaker, a job she seems to take some joy in. No matter how many times Lienne says she's okay, Ivy insists she can do something else to help. She's more appreciative of the girl's assistance than she shows. Ivy settles herself in a corner of the tent. Lienne sits up and swallows the pills with a swig of water; when she's finished, she lies back down and pulls the blankets over her. This injury has her exhausted for most of the day, but even when she isn't, she can barely move--even so, one look at Ivy makes her feel a quick pang of regret for not paying more attention to her. She looks so bored, eyes gazing around the tent's interior. Lienne realizes now how little Ivy has to do here, how terrible it must be to live such a banal existence as a child. Lienne throws the covers off her body and sits up; it's not a smooth process, taking longer than normal for her to get into a comfortable position. She looks at Ivy and plasters on a small smile. "What do you wanna do?" Lienne asks. Ivy hesitates in her answer. "What do you mean?" she says. "We need something fun to do." "But you look tired." "I slept half the day; I'm fine," she says, a small lie. “Okay,” Ivy says. “Well, you can’t really move, so your question’s kinda hard.” Lienne laughs, stops herself and winces when she feels a tearing pain in her abdomen, but persists in smiling. “I guess we could play with a stick. That sounds fun, right?” Ivy returns her grin. “I...I’ve got nothing. Sorry.” Lienne looks at her apologetically, but Ivy just shrugs. “It’s fine. It’s better if you rest, anyway,” Ivy says. “I’ll go see if Jake wants to do something.” “Okay. Have fun, if that’s possible. Try not to finish his sentences for him.” Ivy exits the tent with a laugh, and Lienne’s happy she at least got a chuckle out of her. ---- Dean grabs his bag from the floor and pulls it onto his back again. He retrieves his pistol from the holster at his side and points it toward the door. The weapon shakes violently as he waits for the inevitable breakdown of the door. “Shoot and run, Dean. Shoot and run,” he mumbles repeatedly to himself. He flinches as one of the hinges flies off, and the gun nearly tumbles out of his grasp. He switches hands, the pistol now in his left, and finds that halts the trembling somewhat. An infected hand sneaks through a tiny opening in the door. Dean takes a step back, then a few more, until his back hits the far wall. A few more rotten fingers follow, reaching wildly for the meal they can smell but not quite see. Dean’s trying to come to terms with his imminent demise when two gunshots emanate from somewhere outside the room. He hears another, and a bullet pierces the door. Dean falls to the ground, his hands covering his head, as the bullet ricochets somewhere off the wall to his right. The door flings open suddenly, the group of infected stumbling in. Dean rises to his feet and backs himself against the wall again, his finger assaulting the trigger. Between the crowd of heads, he can see Adam and Duke far down the corridor, rushing to his aid. But there’s no way they can get there before Dean is overwhelmed. Dean’s gun clicks, and from the twelve shots he only took out four. That leaves nine left, he decides from his quick count. With only his knife, there’s no way… He’s not letting himself go out this way; his adrenaline surges, overpowering his doubt and weakness and replacing both with an intense anger. He pulls his knife swiftly and charges at the first infected. The blade digs into its forehead--Adam and Duke nearly freeze in surprise, but soon shift into a full sprint. Dean gives the infected immediately to his left an elbow to the face; its jaw collapses and detaches from its face. He then pulls his knife, and the infected on his right receives a kick to the knee that completely breaks off the bottom half of its leg. Dean takes that opportunity to give it a quick stab to the top of the head. As he does so, he realizes how big a mistake this was. The first of the six infected still left squeeze through the doorway, and as Dean is pulling his knife from the skull of the last, the frontmost infected tackles him to the ground. He doesn’t have a full grip on his knife yet, so it skitters across the tile. Another infected falls on top of him, and he feels the wind fly from his lungs at the sudden weight of two bodies. He uses his forearm to smash the infected across the face. He does it once more, then again, as a few more gunshots are fired and some of the infected at the door topple to the ground. As the infected is disoriented, its snapping jaws ceasing movement for just a second, Dean reaches far for the knife; in a quick motion, he brings it forward and the blade goes straight through the infected’s eye and through the head of the one atop it in a single stab. Dean pulls the knife out and pushes off both bodies with a grunt. Just a few seconds later, Duke is standing above him, Adam following soon behind. Duke holds his hand out. Dean takes it without hesitation, and he’s pulled to his feet. ---- Daniel’s cheeks are moist with tears as Tora sits in a chair next to him, wrapping a bandage around his left hand, right where his pinky and ring finger have been detached. She curses under her breath at how quickly the bandage is soaked in his blood, but she continues wrapping until the bleeding eventually stops. Lucy just watches from a few feet away, her hand covering her mouth and a disgusted look on her face. “You...you look like you’re the one that just lost half their hand,” Daniel says to Lucy and he forces out weak a chuckle, hoping some humor will alleviate the pain. It doesn’t, and she doesn’t laugh. “You’ll be fine, Daniel,” Tora says. “Don’t worry.” “Have you...seen this work before?” He takes deep, pained breaths between his words. Tora pauses. “No.” “Oh, Jesus.” “I’ve met people who’ve said they’ve done it but the only time I’d been there to witness it...it didn’t work.” “What happened?” “He got bit, and we got the leg off pretty quick. It might’ve been blood loss, might have been the infection. I don’t know, but he died a few hours later.” “Th-thank you for those...assuring words,” he says. “I don’t want to lie to you. That’ll only make it worse.” He swallows hard and stares down at the blood-soaked bandage. He doesn’t feel any different yet. Tired, sure, but not like he’s getting sicker. He takes that as a good sign, and with a sigh, he leans his head back and looks up at the ceiling. It’s an extremely brief moment of relaxation; just a few moments later they hear gunshots from up above. The shots stop for a second, then start up again. They can only assume Dean, Duke, and Adam are in some kind of trouble, but with Daniel’s injury and their sudden onset of exhaustion, they’re not sure what they can do about it. ---- Farrah continues to offer Cedric water, food, medicine--but he denies it all and rolls over onto his side on the floor of the tent. Farrah sits next to him with her knees pulled up to her chest, trudging through the task of keeping an eye on him. She has her gun within reach, too, in case Hunter decides his need for vengeance still hasn’t been quelled after his beating of Cedric. She glances at him, knows he’s not sleeping. “I’m sorry,” she says, after about ten minutes of neither of them saying anything. He shifts slightly, but doesn’t respond. “For bothering you about the driving shit.” He mumbles something she can’t make out. “What’d you say?” “I said forget about it,” he repeats, his voice muffled. “No, Ced--” “Why’d you think I didn’t want to bring it up?” “I--I don’t know. That’s why I asked.” “If I don’t pry into your damn life, don’t do it to me. Or anybody else.” “I said I’m--” “It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, turning to her. “You see what the hell happened to me?” She observes his face for a second--the swelling, the blackened eyes--and looks away toward the tent’s entrance. “This is why I keep shit a secret. It always comes back--it always catches you, eventually. I try to keep that from happening as long as I can.” He sighs and turns away again. “Now I gotta know he’s here everyday. I gotta live with him. He knows I ruined his fucking life and now I’ve gotta live with him…” He’d rather get his face ruined every day of his life rather than look Hunter in the eye from now on. That burning hatred that he’s bound to see, the knowledge that someone wants more than anything for him to disappear from the face of this earth--that’s so much worse than a few black eyes. Living with Hunter is going to make the day he hit that woman impossible to forget. It doesn’t matter how long he wanted to repress it before: that memory’s sticking with him forever now. Farrah has no adequate response to this, so they delve back into an awkward silence. “Sorry,” he says after a little while. “I’m not mad at--at you. I’m just…” He trails off, and she picks up where he left off. “It’s fine,” she says, sincerely. He sighs. “Could you...do something for me?” “Yeah, anything.” “Talk to him for me.” She gives him an uncomfortable look. “No way,” she says. “That’s probably the last thing I’d do right now. He really isn’t okay.” “Just tell him I said--” he begins. “He knows you’re sorry, and he doesn’t care. Nothing you say--nothing I'' say--is gonna change that. Ever.” ---- “G-got your stuff,” Jake says, walking over to Cole, who still sits outside his tent. Jake tosses a bag of gummy bears into Cole’s lap, and he tears open the package greedily. “Awesome. Thanks,” Cole says, popping one into his mouth. Kind of hard, but he still relishes in the sweetness. “That’s our o-only bag. D-don’t eat ‘em all.” “‘Course not,” Cole says, but he pours a handful into his palm and dumps them into his mouth. “Asshole,” Jake mutters, and Cole laughs. “Here. Have some.” Cole offers him the bag, and Jake holds his hand out. Cole pulls it away quickly without actually giving him any and scarfs down a few more, holding back his laughter. “You do know f-foods limited, r-right? Not the b-best time to be a fatass.” “Can’t help it, man. So fucking good. I’m serious now, take some.” Cole lives up to his offer this time and gives Jake two gummy worms as he sits down next to him. He rolls the bag up afterward, now half full. “What’ve you been up to?” “Not much,” Jake says. “Saw you chatting up Farrah earlier. Showing off the crossbow?” Jake grins. “Yeah. She th-thought it was pretty cool.” “Hot, right?” “What?” “Farrah.” “Oh. Y-yeah, I guess.” “''You guess? Whatever,” Cole says. “She’s alright. I’ve s-seen better.” “What--when?” “I dunno. But she’s l-like...an eight,” Jake says. “''Eight?'' She’s a ten, easy.” “''Lienne'' is a ten.” “I don’t even think I have to go over this again,” Cole says. “I have a chance. M-maybe." “You keep thinking that. I won’t stop you.” Cole can’t help it, so he sneaks in another gummy bear. There’s a long pause. It’s been a while since they’ve talked, and Jake never found the right time to, with the group in such disarray. “Hey,” Jake says, and Cole turns to look at him. “What state are we in?” “Uh...Nebraska still, I think. Really close to Colorado, though. Right on the border. Why?” Jake shrugs. “Just getting k-kinda anxious, I guess. To get to C-California, I mean.” “Me too. Think it’s as good as they say?” “I hope. I just wanna do stuff again...normal stuff,” Jake says. “Live in a house. School. P-people. What about you?” Cole takes a second to answer. “I think it is,” he says, a revelation that’s slightly surprising to Jake. “Seriously?” “Yeah, man. It’s...all I think about, pretty much. Can’t do shit else, so why not? It’s like...it’s just cool to think about having an actual life instead of convincing myself I’ll have to live like this forever. I only do that if I wanna feel shitty.” “I c-can’t help but feel like it’s gonna be b-bullshit, though. The pamphlet just l-looks like propaganda crap.” “Try not to think like that,” Cole says with unintended harshness. “Let this be...the one thing you look forward to. Let this be something good.” Jake can’t help but notice that his voice sounds detached, like he’s speaking almost...unconsciously. Cole snaps out of his weird trance with a sigh and looks down at the ground. “Sorry,” Cole says, but Jake’s not entirely sure why he’s apologizing. “I’m just…” He pauses, rethinks his words. “Forget about it.” ---- Duke pulls Dean to his feet, and with Adam, they flee over the bodies and out the room. Dean lags a considerable distance behind, holding onto his fiercely aching ribs. “We don’t have all fucking day, man!” Adam shouts back at him. An infected emerges from the room next to him, and Adam takes no time giving it a quick stab to the forehead. “You didn’t just fall from the fucking ceiling!” Dean yells back, but he still tries to pick up his pace. Still dark, they try to find their way back to the stairwell, a little more familiar with the hospital's layout now. They run, through corridors and over debris, finally spotting the sign that points to the stairs. Adam leads, then stops suddenly, to Duke’s surprise. Duke halts, too, but tugs on Adam’s arm. “What the fu--” Duke begins, but his gaze soon follows Adam’s. Dean stumbles up next to them and lifts his head. At the end of the hall, standing in front of a large window, an infected stands. It’s hunched over, a mixture of blood and spit flying from its mouth with each hard breath. Duke raises his gun, but Adam grabs his forearm. Adam would let him shoot it like any other they’ve come across, but something seems...off about this one. The way it stands, its brighter skin tone, the way its fists clench and unclench at its sides. The infected turns, snapping its head around angrily. Its breathing stops once it spots Adam, Duke, and Dean. The three stare it down, overly confused and hesitant. Then the thing breaks into a run, emitting an ear-splitting scream. “What the fuck?!” Duke shouts, and he pulls on the trigger. He hits it in the neck, but the infected doesn’t falter in the slightest. One more shot, and the bullet flies through its head. It crumples to the ground, and Adam, Duke, and Dean share nervous glances. “That musta been an infected Usain Bolt or some shit because what the fuck?” Duke says. His heart beats rapidly in his chest, and he holsters his pistol with shaking hands. He pats Adam on the shoulder, and they trot over to it. They all crouch down next to the corpse, looking over it warily. Its eyes are wide open--the entirety of its irises are a deep red, different from the milky green and grey they’ve always seen, and the area around it is almost completely black. “Ho-ly shit…” Duke mutters. Its skin doesn’t look as rotten as others, but its clothes are in just as abysmal condition. Something doesn’t add up, and based on the frightful expressions of Adam and Dean, Duke can tell they’re thinking the same thing. Category:Dead Frontier Category:Dead Frontier Issues Category:Issues Category:Walkerbait22's Stories